LSAT on resume

[Thistle]

i think its pretentious as hell, and is likely to piss somebody off

besides the fact that the lsat has no correlation as to skill as an attorney, nor even much of a correlation to success in law school.   

[,.,.,.;.,.,.]

Little known fact:

The most famous and excellent advocates of our time all got 180s on their LSAT.

[Thistle]

Little known fact:

The most famous and excellent advocates of our time all got 180s on their LSAT.

oh bull 

[,.,.,.;.,.,.]

Little known fact:

The most famous and excellent advocates of our time all got 180s on their LSAT.

oh bull 

I know.  I'm just kidding ya.  A few of them got as low as 175.

[rucoach]

As the actual OP, I'm surprised to see my question has generated 14 pages of "discussion".  No, I don't plan on using the LSAT on my resume, given the reaction I see it generated on this board.  But, I would like to iterate a couple of points.

1) I was only talking about resumes sent out at this point in our legal careers (before we have any law school grades).  I fully agree that once grades come out the LSAT is a meaningless number and doesn't deserve a place on your resume. 

2) I think the best reason for the overall policy of not using it is not so much how you come off to law firms (I would hope attorneys at law firms are not so thin-skinned that they bristle at the sight of a test score) but that as a profession we want to keep the shelf life of an LSAT score as short as possible.  If LSAT scores were fair game for resumes, everyone would either have to put it on there or have potential employers wonder why it's not there.  It's in the best interest of everyone not to have it on there. 

[CST]

2) I think the best reason for the overall policy of not using it is not so much how you come off to law firms (I would hope attorneys at law firms are not so thin-skinned that they bristle at the sight of a test score) but that as a profession we want to keep the shelf life of an LSAT score as short as possible.  If LSAT scores were fair game for resumes, everyone would either have to put it on there or have potential employers wonder why it's not there.  It's in the best interest of everyone not to have it on there. 

You have this all wrong. You are entirely missing the point of a resume. You don't exclude an LSAT because you fear the attorneys are thin-skinned. (Do you think we are intimidated by your score?) You exclude it because it says nothing meaningful about what you will contribute to our office. Further, including it if you weren't asked for it, demonstrates that you don't understand what we are looking for. It also suggests to many attorneys that you are immature or egotistical.

The entire purpose of a resume is to market yourself to a potential employer. Many, many people starting out in their careers see it instead as either a dumping ground for everything they have ever done, or some sort of "brag sheet." Yes, you want to portray yourself in a the most favorable light possible, but to do that you need to look at it from the perspective of the employer. There are some times where you may feel the need to include something to "be true to yourself" because you wouldn't want to work for an organization if you felt the need to "hide" part of who you are (people who are heavily involved in certain causes and they run through their work experience, for example." But I hope that your LSAT score is not "who you are." If it is and that is the reason you are including it on your resume, well, you'll wind up where you belong -- but you'll also cut yourself out of the running of a lot of jobs in the process.

Employers have already dictated that the shelf life of the LSAT is limited to the moment you choose your law school. They enforce that policy by dumping the resumes that try to squeeze more milage out of it into the trash.

[....,,.,]

2) I think the best reason for the overall policy of not using it is not so much how you come off to law firms (I would hope attorneys at law firms are not so thin-skinned that they bristle at the sight of a test score) but that as a profession we want to keep the shelf life of an LSAT score as short as possible.  If LSAT scores were fair game for resumes, everyone would either have to put it on there or have potential employers wonder why it's not there.  It's in the best interest of everyone not to have it on there. 

You have this all wrong. You are entirely missing the point of a resume. You don't exclude an LSAT because you fear the attorneys are thin-skinned. (Do you think we are intimidated by your score?) You exclude it because it says nothing meaningful about what you will contribute to our office. Further, including it if you weren't asked for it, demonstrates that you don't understand what we are looking for. It also suggests to many attorneys that you are immature or egotistical.

The entire purpose of a resume is to market yourself to a potential employer. Many, many people starting out in their careers see it instead as either a dumping ground for everything they have ever done, or some sort of "brag sheet." Yes, you want to portray yourself in a the most favorable light possible, but to do that you need to look at it from the perspective of the employer. There are some times where you may feel the need to include something to "be true to yourself" because you wouldn't want to work for an organization if you felt the need to "hide" part of who you are (people who are heavily involved in certain causes and they run through their work experience, for example." But I hope that your LSAT score is not "who you are." If it is and that is the reason you are including it on your resume, well, you'll wind up where you belong -- but you'll also cut yourself out of the running of a lot of jobs in the process.

Employers have already dictated that the shelf life of the LSAT is limited to the moment you choose your law school. They enforce that policy by dumping the resumes that try to squeeze more milage out of it into the trash.

People talked a little about this earlier in the thread, but what are your thoughts on putting undergrad GPA on your resume?  I assume latin honors should always be there, and I'd imagine a high GPA (3.5+) should probably be there too.  What about average gpas (3.0-3.5), or bad ones GPAs?

[Thistle]

latin honors definitely, or if your school called them something different, include them.  maybe not gpa...i mean, the honors speak for themselves

[....,,.,]

latin honors definitely, or if your school called them something different, include them.  maybe not gpa...i mean, the honors speak for themselves

Yeah I agree latin honors should definitely be there....I didn't mean putting GPA in addition to latin honors....but if  you didn't get latin honors, would you put your GPA on there?

[Thistle]

latin honors definitely, or if your school called them something different, include them.  maybe not gpa...i mean, the honors speak for themselves

Yeah I agree latin honors should definitely be there....I didn't mean putting GPA in addition to latin honors....but if  you didn't get latin honors, would you put your GPA on there?

i have heard that you should consider putting anything over a 3.25 or so; if you did not receive honors.  i do not believe there is a clear consensus on that.

however, typically i would think that while in law school there is only one gpa that counts, your current one.  if we are talking about the resume you send in with the application process, its redundant because lsac provides it anyway.